Georgia CTSA Welcomes New KL2 Scholars

Congratulations to the new scholars in the Georgia CTSA KL2 Scholars Program. The goal of the Georgia CTSA KL2 Program is to support and enhance career development for junior faculty interested in a career that encompasses clinical and translational science, and clinical and translational research. The KL2 Program supports career development for junior faculty from a wide variety of disciplines at the Georgia CTSA partner institutions to become independent, established, and ethical clinical and translational science investigators.

Joshua Chan, MD, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, and Surgical Director of the ECMO Program in the Emory University School of Medicine.  He holds an MD from the University of Southern California and completed fellowships in Thoracic Surgery (Stanford University) and Thoracic Transplantation and Mechanical Circulatory Support (Cedars-Sinai Medical Center). Dr. Chan’s current program of research focuses on optimizing outcomes of patients in end-stage heart and lung failure as well as improving survival following thoracic transplantation, particularly in regards to detecting and ameliorating transplant rejection. His KL2 project will investigate the use of high-resolution metabolomics in the identification of novel noninvasive biomarkers for heart transplant acute cellular rejection (ACR). Findings from his KL2 project will provide a foundation for further evaluation of metabolomic biomarkers with longitudinal analyses to identify metabolite kinetics and early markers of ACR. Dr. Chan’s long-term career goal is to become an independent, funded, translational surgeon-scientist focused on biomarkers for heart transplant rejection, uncovering the underlying pathways in allograft rejection, and enhancing the overall health of these very limited and valuable organs.

Kecheng Lei, PhD, is an Instructor in the Department of Neurosurgery in the Emory University School of Medicine. She holds a PhD in Pharmacology from East China University of Science and Technology (ECUST). Her primary research focuses on a comprehensive understanding of drug therapy and the role of gene expression alterations in human diseases.  Dr. Lei’s KL2 project will focus on investigating drug repurposing strategies for Schwannoma patients, particularly those with germline loss of function mutations in the SWI/SNF-related matrix-associated actin-dependent regulator of chromatin subfamily B member 1 (SMARCB1) gene.  Dr. Lei’s goal with her KL2 project is to generate crucial preliminary data to support further exploration of the mechanism of action of repurposed drugs and conduct in vivo studies on Schwannomas with SMARCB1 mutations. Her long-term goal is to establish a career in cancer research focusing on the drug-repurposed strategy for Schwannoma patients and to lead a translational research team as a Principal Investigator.

Mark Mai, MD, MHS, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Critical Care Medicine, Department of Pediatrics at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and the Emory University School of Medicine.  He holds an MD and MHS, both from the Yale School of Medicine and completed Fellowships in Clinical Informatics and Pediatric Critical Care at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.  Dr. Mai’s goal is to improve the care of critically ill children by learning from data routinely collected for clinical care and implementing that knowledge into providers’ workflows. His primary research interests include developing infrastructure and capacity to support predictive analytics and evaluating how predictive algorithms may be incorporated into clinical practice. His KL2 project will address early intervention on modifiable causes of acute kidney injury (AKI) through the study of social and technical factors preventing implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) models predicting AKI. His long-term career goal is to improve pediatric acute care outcomes through successful implementation of AI-enabled tools.

Megan Urbanski, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Transplantation, Department of Surgery in the Emory University School of Medicine and the Emory Health Services Research Center. She holds a PhD in Public Health from Temple University and an MSW from the University of Pennsylvania. Her current program of research focuses on improving care, access to treatment, and outcomes for patients who experience an unexpected end-stage kidney disease (ESKD) transition and urgent dialysis start. Her KL2 project aims to employ systems science methodology and a community engaged research design to conduct the formative work necessary to develop a multilevel hospital-based systems-change intervention to optimize the ESKD transition. Her overarching career goal is to become a successful and independent clinical and translational researcher in the areas of kidney disease and transplantation.